Togian Islands

The Togians are volcanic and coral islands strung across the middle of the Gulf of Tomini, lying just south of the equator. Their oldest communities are sea peoples: the Bajau, long associated with life on boats and in stilt villages over the shallows, and the Bobongko, whose small Austronesian language survives in the group, alongside Togian and Saluan speakers and later arrivals from Gorontalo and the Bugis coasts. Islam reached the islands through trade, and the villages have been Muslim for centuries.

Under Dutch rule the islands were an obscure corner of the residency, valuable for coconuts, and copra remained the mainstay well into the twentieth century. Distance shaped everything: no road has ever connected them to the mainland, and the only links have been boats to Ampana in the south and Gorontalo across the gulf. The 1983 eruption of Colo, the volcano that makes up Una-Una, was the one event that reached the outside world. The island's several thousand inhabitants were evacuated before the eruption buried it in ash, and resettlement afterwards was partial and slow.

Visitors began arriving in numbers in the 1990s, when the diving off Una-Una became known, and a small, low-key economy of beach bungalows has grown since; by 2023 there were about twenty resorts across the islands. The waters were brought under protection as Kepulauan Togean National Park in 2004, partly in response to dynamite and cyanide fishing, and the Togians became part of the new Tojo Una-Una Regency when it was split from Poso in December 2003. Electricity, mobile coverage and fresh water remain uneven, and improvement has been gradual rather than transforming.

Life here is organised around the sea and the village. Most settlements sit at the water's edge or over it, on stilts reached by timber walkways, and boats do the work that roads do elsewhere — carrying children to school, goods to market and families to prayers. The Bajau, historically a boat-dwelling people across maritime Southeast Asia, are the best-known community of the islands, though only one village is theirs, and are celebrated for free-diving and for a knowledge of reefs that is passed down rather than taught.

Custom regulates the water as well as the land. Sasi, the practice of closing a stretch of reef or a species to harvest for a period so that stocks recover, is known across eastern Indonesia and has been revived in places alongside the national park's rules. The tension between that tradition and destructive methods — blast and poison fishing, and the trade in live reef fish — has shaped island politics for thirty years, and several villages now run their own protected areas.

Days follow the call to prayer, the tide and the boat schedule. Ramadan changes the rhythm of everything, with cooking and visiting after dark; weddings and circumcisions bring whole villages together. Visitors are treated with a mixture of curiosity and reserve, and a little Indonesian goes a long way, as English is spoken mainly by guesthouse staff and dive guides. Outside the bungalow beaches, the islands are not set up for tourism and do not pretend to be.

Several tens of thousands of people live across the archipelago's 59 villages, most of them small; Wakai on Batudaka is the main settlement and port. Fishing is the core of the economy, together with coconuts for copra, small gardens of cassava and vegetables, and cloves and cacao where the soil allows. Seaweed farming has spread through the shallows in recent decades, its lines and floats visible around many villages.

Supplies arrive by boat. The ferries that bring visitors also bring rice, fuel, cement and everything else, and prices reflect the freight. Power in many places comes from generators or solar panels for part of the day rather than around the clock, water is collected or drawn from wells, and mobile signal is patchy and strongest near the bigger villages. Schools go up to junior secondary level in the main settlements, and older children and young adults leave for Ampana, Palu or further afield — a steady outflow that most families take for granted.

Tourism employs a modest number of people directly, in bungalows, boats and dive operations, and its earnings circulate through fish sales, building work and transport. It is seasonal and vulnerable: bad weather, a broken ferry or a downturn elsewhere empties the islands quickly. The recurring public issues are the state of the reefs, the reliability of boats and power, and how much of the national park's protection is enforced in practice.

Island food is simple, and there is little choice: what the boats bring and what the sea provides. Fish is the constant — skipjack and yellowfin tuna, snapper, emperor, squid and octopus — grilled over coconut husks, fried, or simmered in a yellow broth of turmeric, lime and chilli. It comes with rice, a vegetable cooked in coconut milk or a plate of boiled greens, and a sambal of pounded chilli and lime, sharper than the food itself. Guesthouse kitchens cook the same dishes, with pancakes, eggs and fruit at breakfast and fried bananas in the afternoon.

The wider Central Sulawesi repertoire appears in the villages: ikan bakar, grilled fish with a chilli and tomato relish; sayur santan, vegetables in coconut milk; and dabu-dabu, the raw chilli, shallot and lime dressing common across the north. Cassava, sweet potato and sago supplement rice, and coconut is used in every form — flesh, milk, oil, and the sweet sap collected from the flower stems. Coconut crab is a local speciality, though it grows slowly and is under pressure from collection.

Drinks are limited to tea, instant coffee, bottled water and soft drinks brought in by boat, with fresh coconut the best thing available. Alcohol is not sold in the Muslim villages and appears only occasionally at guesthouses. Anyone with a particular diet should expect to eat what the kitchen cooks for everyone, and say so before arriving rather than on the night.